


Of Pooka and Men

by Kayasurin



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Aliens, As compared to neuter, Because Jack thinks neuter means it got cut off, Bunny is asexual, M/M, Mentions of Sex, No other characters, Relationship Discussions, That's right, When it was never there in the first place, but no actual sex, it all works out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2022129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bunny and Jack have been together for a few months now, but Jack's never been able to figure out why Bunny will touch him, but won't let Jack touch him back. At least the explanation doesn't involve tentacles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Pooka and Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [j99450](https://archiveofourown.org/users/j99450/gifts).



Jack panted like a racehorse just finishing a sprint, and stopped pulling on Bunny’s ears. The Pooka licked the top of Jack’s thigh, and then squirmed his way back up to the pillows, looking as pleased as the cat that had a bowl of cream. Or _something_ ; there were a few white drops at the corners of his mouth, anyway.

He reached up and swiped the drops away, but Bunny caught his fingers and licked them clean.

“Hey now,” Jack mumbled, and freed his hand, not that his partner was holding on tightly or anything. He worked one arm under Bunny’s neck, and stroked the Pooka’s fur with his hand. Said hand began traveling south in what was hopefully a subtle manner.

“Hey yourself,” Bunny said, voice a little rough. He caught Jack’s hand before it’d traveled down past his ribcage, and pressed a kiss to the fingers.

Jack frowned. Normally – and it was kind of shameful how little he thought about it – Bunny would catch his hand before Jack could start returning the nightly favour, they’d snuggle, and then Jack would fall asleep. Even during the day, if it got interrupted by “a spot of naughty” as Bunny was fond of calling it, the Pooka would get Jack off – in a most satisfying and mind blowing way – and then be up and working before Jack had caught his breath.

After two, nearly three months, it was making Jack… not _worry_ , exactly, but still. Bunny never talked about it.

Through some quirk or twist of fate, he wasn’t feeling quite as tired as he usually did after orgasm. So, since Bunny wouldn't talk about it, and he wasn't falling asleep immediately, maybe he should ask.

Like he probably should have three months ago.

“Bunny?”

“Mm?” Bunny left off nuzzling Jack’s hand, and cracked one eye open. “Wassit?”

Jack wiggled his fingers, tickling Bunny’s whiskers. “Question for you.”

Bunny shifted, getting more comfortable. One arm worked around under Jack’s neck, similar to Jack’s position, one of the few ways they could sleep-hug without having limbs go numb. The other wrapped around Jack’s waist, holding him close. “Mm?”

Jack rested his hand on Bunny’s hip, like he usually did. “You don’t seem comfortable letting me touch you, in a…” His sleepy brain tossed up an appropriate word, “…sexual manner. Am I doing something wrong?”

Bunny opened his eyes and frowned. “What’d make you think that?”

“Well, I’ve never gotten you off, for one thing,” Jack said. He paused to yawn. “I know you’re an alien. So, am I doing something wrong? Is there something you’d rather I do, instead?”

“Ah.” Bunny twitched his ears, and looked off into the middle distance. Then he made a face. “I think I’m too tired to answer that properly, right now. I’d say something wrong.” He looked back down at Jack. “Think we can hold the answer off until morning, Frostflower?”

“Only if you promise not to use _that_ nickname again. Find another one.”

Bunny chuckled, and nuzzled the top of Jack’s head. “Promise. We’ll talk first thing after brekkies, yeah?”

Jack yawned again, and nuzzled into the soft fur at the base of Bunny’s throat. “Sure. Just don’t forget.”

“She’ll be apples,” Bunny murmured, and draped one long leg over Jack’s thighs.

Jack woke up the next morning alone, tangled up in blankets and pillows that were a poor substitute to Bunny’s fur and solid body. He wasn’t too worried; he could smell cooking eggs and sweet pastry, and some wild scent he somehow recognized as fresh-pressed juice, some kind of mixed berries.

He yawned, and sat up. His clothes were off to the side, and he pulled his pants on. The sweater could wait, easily, but he wasn’t comfortable letting everything just dangle.

The enticing breakfast smells drew him out of the bedroom to the kitchen. He passed through the sitting room and the large, formal dining room that Bunny never used. The house was an old style, without hallways, one room leading to the next. It felt comfortable to Jack, even though the home he’d grown up in had all of two rooms, his parent’s bedroom and then everything else.

“You’re up early,” Bunny said, not looking away from the skillet.

“Good smells,” Jack said in reply. He started setting out the cutlery, though Bunny already had plates ready to receive the food. There was a pitcher of the fresh-pressed juice. Jack licked his lips, and leaned back against the table.

“I don’t know what looks better,” he said. “The food or the cook.”

“Ha, ha,” Bunny said. “Here, the tucker’s ready.”

He started plating the food, eggs and griddle-cakes, and a pot of liquid honey and another of preserves. Jack got the toast, which had been browning on the fire. It took a little juggling to get everything on the table without running into each other, but they were practicing and getting better every day. It was definitely a routine Jack enjoyed putting effort into.

Then they sat down to eat. Jack helped himself to the griddle-cakes and eggs, while Bunny took the rest of the eggs and most of the toast. Jack poured honey on the griddle-cakes and eggs, and Bunny spread the preserves on his toast… and then poured honey on his eggs, looking a touch sheepish.

“I’m corrupting you,” Jack said, doing his best not to sound gleeful and managing to sound smug instead.

“Shut your gob and drink your juice,” Bunny said, and poured them both glasses.

Jack grinned, and ate a bite of griddle-cakes instead.

They didn’t talk much while eating, neither of them being too fond of speaking around bites of food. Or worse, having the food go cold while they chattered. On top of that, Bunny was a good cook, and paying the meal anything less than full attention just felt wrong.

Jack took care of the dishes when they finished, while Bunny took the scant remains of the meal – a few crusts and crumbs, mostly – out to the compost. There weren’t too many dishes, so Jack was just about done when Bunny came back.

“Want to leave them to air dry?” Bunny asked. “Think I owe you a talk.”

Jack gave the last plate a final scouring wipe, and set it on the counter and the dry cloth he’d spread out. “Sure,” he said, and froze the water clinging to his hands. A few quick flexes, and the ice flaked off, leaving his hands dry.

They headed outside, Jack following Bunny. Jack thought he knew why Bunny preferred to talk outside, under the fake sun and minimal breeze. He wasn’t sure, but best he could figure, the house was something Bunny had built half because he wanted to, and half because he was expected to. The fields, though, were all him; places he worked, places he tended, places that gave him pleasure.

Jack didn’t mind it. The egg fields were wide open, and again, breeze. Not that he got claustrophobic or anything, but between closed in rooms and open fields, he knew which he preferred.

For _most_ things. He wasn’t an exhibitionist.

Bunny sat down, and looked up at Jack. Not that he had to look up very far. And Jack really didn’t mind that. Unlike most other people, Bunny’s greater height always felt sheltering, protective, instead of like he was looming over Jack. Bunny never thought the short thing meant Jack was childish.

It’d always been Jack’s _actions_ , which was how it was supposed to be.

“So,” Bunny said. He held out one hand, looking almost as shy as when he’d first confessed he had a “pash” for Jack.

Jack took his hand, and sat down next to him. “So,” he said in reply, and snuggled close. “Is it because I don’t have fur?”

Bunny huffed, and wrapped his arm around Jack’s shoulders. “Are you stupid or something?”

“Well, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense,” he admitted. “Considering how often you talk about painting me, which we really have to look into sometime…” He slanted a look up at Bunny from under his eyelashes, as coyly as he knew how. “Can’t paint fur as easily.”

“No, you can’t,” Bunny agreed. “It’s not that.” He paused, and frowned. “And the fur isn’t weird for you?”

“Pretty sure we had this talk,” Jack sing-songed. “You wouldn’t be you without your fur. Unless maybe someone shaved you bald in your sleep, then you’d be you, just… mockery-worthy.”

“Shave _you_ bald,” Bunny muttered. “No. It’s, well. It’s the alien thing.”

Which figured. “So, what, you only have a sex drive once every seven years? You’ve got tentacles? Ah, your lower half turns into a bowl of jelly that you –“

“Jack!” Bunny covered his face with one hand, shoulders shaking. “ _No_. Crikey, where’d you get that bullpucky?”

“Crappy dime store novels about aliens and Star Trek.”

He lowered his hand, grinning. “No. No tentacles, no jelly, no seven years or any other nonsense you’ve read about. I’m, ah, sech.”

“Heh?” Jack asked, and frowned. “What’s that mean?”

“Sech, ah… Pooka have – had – three genders,” Bunny said, cheek twitching. He looked away, and raked his claws through the short grass. “Male, female, and sech. Most of the Pooka were sech, like me. Neuter.”

Jack blinked. And blinked again.And looked down at Bunny’s lap. “Promise me that means no one cut anything off.”

“Nothing to cut off.” Bunny hunched his shoulders, and reached down. He carefully parted the fur at his groin, revealing a little bump, but nothing like a penis, or even a hidden sheath like most animals had. He stopped holding the fur back, and it fell back into place.

Jack frowned. “So… how does that work?” he asked. “If most of the species was… sech, was it?”

“Right, sech. Well, Pooka had big families for a reason,” Bunny said, grinning faintly. “There’d be maybe one male for every ten sech, and one female for another ten sech –“

“So, two baby-makers for every twenty that couldn’t?” Jack summarized. Bunny smacked at him, not very serious or hard, and ignored him.

“- and they’d usually have litters. Six was the most common at a time.”

“Six,” Jack said, and shuddered. “Well, I guess that’s how it was supposed to be, but _yeowch_. I hope you treated your mom like an _empress_ , Bun-Bun.”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, none of the ones with a gender had to do a thing they didn’t want to,” Bunny said. “Most of ‘em were good, you know. None that really took advantage of their station. Loved their kids, all of ‘em, mostly.”

Jack nodded. “That’s good.”

“The sech, we became… well. Everything else. The professionals, farmers, scientists, artists, warriors… Not having a sexual drive freed us up quite a bit.”

At that, Jack frowned. “You don’t have a sex drive? I mean, I guess I should figure, you don’t have the bits that go _with_ a sex drive, but…?” He gestured between the two of them.

“Love and romance is quite a bit different,” Bunny murmured, and nuzzled at Jack’s hair again. “It’s… like asexual here on earth. They maybe don’t want the sweaty parts where you bump groins together, but most of ‘em want someone in their life to love.”

“Just without sweaty parts,” Jack agreed. He wondered, briefly, at why Bunny had used the word ‘most’ there, but then thought about a few very sexual people he’d observed over the years. They hadn’t wanted anyone to _love_ either. Sex, yes, but emotional attachment would’ve sent them running.

“Exactly. Only difference is there weren’t anyone telling us sech that since we had the bits, we were touched in the head for thinking we didn’t want sex. We _didn’t_ have the bits.”

“So, you’d pair up for… love and cuddles,” Jack said. “I get that.” He frowned. “What about, I mean, what if someone, a sech, fell in love with someone who had a gender?”

“Happened a lot,” Bunny said. “Think about it. You’ve got a pretty little doe or buck, surrounded by sech, but other does and bucks are pretty rare. Back in the day the bucks would be escorted around to the does. There’d be a big to-do about it. But by my time, well, it was a quaint little custom that no one did any more. There’d still be the celebrations, but it’d be…. How best to describe it… Turkey basters of fresh swimmers.”

Jack groaned, and covered his face with one hand. “ _Thank you_ for those mental images, Cottontail.”

“They’re in my head, they’re in yours,” the Pooka said, sounding prim. Then he relaxed and grinned. “Was pretty common for a doe or buck to fall in love with a sech. Kind of inevitable. The sex didn’t necessarily have anything to do with love, ya know.”

Well, that made sense. “So it doesn’t bother you that I want to jump your bones… a lot?”

Bunny snickered. “Very complimentary, that. B’sides, I’ve got my hands and my mouth, and there’s plenty of ways to please a bloke. An’ I like pleasing you,” he said.

“Well,” Jack said, bemused, “You’re good at it.”

“Heh. Just, ah, one thing.” He gestured at his groin. “That’s a cloaca, it doesn’t… stretch. Penetration…”

“Whoa no, no, trust me, no worries there,” Jack said, and held up one hand in the universal ‘stop’ gesture. “All good. I’m okay with that.”

“You’re sure?” Bunny asked, ears tilting back. His eyes crinkled up a little, with worry or something. Jack reached up to smooth it away.

“I’m sure,” Jack said. “To be perfectly honest I went into this expecting tentacles, which is why I didn’t ask right away.” Bunny choked, eyes going wide. “Figured it’d take a while for you to… gather your courage, maybe. Broach the subject. Trust I wouldn’t run screaming for the hills. Finding out my boyfriend is asexual – which, for the record, sounds _so_ much better than neuter. Neuter makes it sound like you were taken to the vet as a baby – that’s not a big deal. If I _really_ get the urge to hump something, I’ll hump your leg.”

Bunny choked again, and then laughed. “Well. Alright then. Glad that’s settled.”

Jack nodded, and rested his head against Bunny’s shoulder. “So who wasn’t? Okay with it, I mean.”

“Ah…”

“I get that you’ve been in relationships before me. I’ve been in relationships before you.” The Snow Queen and Autumn Lord were still two good friends, even. “But from the sounds of things, Cottontail…” Jack hugged Bunny.

“Right,” Bunny said, and sighed. “It was… easier, when I wasn’t the last. I had a mate…”

Jack just nodded. He’d kind of figured, really. The chances Bunny had hit adulthood, had _several_ professions, without having someone special in his life were kind of minuscule.

“Earth, though… Well. Took a while before humans showed up, spirits… another while for me to start getting attracted to such odd looking things…” He paused and poked Jack in the ribs. Jack giggled and batted at his hand. “Took another while to get comfortable with _being_ attracted. It was probably easier for you.”

“The furry community’s gotten bigger since the internet,” he agreed comfortably.

Bunny fell silent. Jack waited. There were times to poke and nag and encourage, and times to wait. This was one of the later, he felt it.

“Two,” Bunny finally said. “Couple centuries apart. Maybe millennia, can’t remember exactly. First one was a sheila. Woman.Was more… socially acceptable.”

“What happened?” Jack asked.

“She weren’t comfortable with the idea of… my not having anything,” Bunny said. “Cultural, maybe. Sex was quite… important, for her people.”

He fell silent again. His arm around Jack’s shoulders tightened, holding him closer.

“I tried shapeshifting,” Bunny admitted, and sighed. “But it didn’t… It looked right, but it hurt. All the time. And I never… felt…”

“Probably the wrong brain chemistry,” Jack offered. “Hormones and stuff. You weren’t… born with them.”

“Probably,” Bunny agreed. “We tried, but broke up. Kind of inevitable.”

Jack hugged Bunny again. “And then later?”

“Well, guess I figured being a male wasn’t going to work. I could make it, but it wasn’t any more responsive then a statue’s donger. No matter how much you fondled, nothing was going to happen.”

“ _And_ now I’ve got a mental image of you walking around with a plaster penis strapped to your groin. Thank you for that.”

Bunny paused, and stared down at Jack. “And now I’ve got that image too,” he said, and shuddered.

“If it’s in my head, it’s in yours,” Jack chirped, purposefully echoing Bunny from earlier.

“Should dump you in the river,” Bunny muttered, and shook his head. “Should, but won’t. Must be crazy.”

Jack ran his fingers through Bunny’s chest fur, and smiled.

“Well,” Bunny said, sobering. “I reckoned being female would be easier. And, well. It was easier to shift things to female, but... that hurt too. And having sex was agony, not that he seemed to notice.”

Jack clenched his teeth, and then deliberately unlocked his jaw. “You broke up with him.”

“Yeah,” Bunny agreed, and sighed. “Couldn’t take it.And couldn’t try shifting into a gender, after that. Neither worked, so what was the point?”

Jack went back to stroking Bunny’s fur. “They were idiots,” he decided. “I’m kind of glad, because that means you’re all mine. But I’m sorry you got hurt.”

Bunny caught Jack’s hand, and kissed his palm. “So you’re sure you’re okay with it?” he asked.

Jack rolled his eyes, and shifted so he was straddling Bunny’s lap. “I’m fine. As long as you’re okay with my sex drive, I’m okay with your lack of one. Just got one question, though.”

“Go ahead.”

“Should I still use the male pronoun for you?”

Bunny laughed at that. “Maybe I should make you use the Pookan forms,” he teased. “But you probably wouldn’t get the pronunciation right. Male’s fine. I’m more like a male anyways, I suppose. Deeper voice, broader shoulders, that sort of thing.”

“Well, then,” Jack said, and draped his arms over Bunny’s shoulders. “That was a good talk, Bunny. An example of its kind. Thanks for telling me.”

Bunny raised one eyebrow, and skimmed his hands along Jack’s waistband. “You’re welcome,” he said dryly. “Do I get a reward for being so good?”

“Do you want one?” Jack asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but leaned forward for a kiss.

Thinking about it – which was getting harder the longer the kiss went on, and the more Bunny’s hands wandered – asexual was _so_ much better than tentacles. Or jelly. Or seven years.

And then he stopped thinking about it entirely.

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose I should be ashamed I wrote this at work, in the morning, but in my defense it was really, really slow. Also, this is J99450's fault, which is also why I'm gifting it to him. ALL YOUR FAULT FOR GIVING ME IDEAS!
> 
> It's un-beta'd because I are scum.


End file.
